


The Halloween That (Almost) Wasn't

by DixieDale



Category: Hogan's Heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 02:39:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16399814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DixieDale/pseuds/DixieDale
Summary: They were in a German prisoner of war camp, running missions that could get them killed at any time, being hounded by an obsessed Gestapo major, their nerves stretched to the limit.  Is it any wonder they decided to skip Halloween?





	The Halloween That (Almost) Wasn't

Newkirk was okay with some of the holidays the rest of his barracks mates wanted to celebrate (with the exception of Christmas, which made him twitchy and caused him to get even more crabby than usual, probably for reasons better left unexplored). Halloween had seemed perhaps silly but still fairly innocuous. Oh, not in the earliest years, certainly. They'd not celebrated ANYTHING in those earliest years, but after the guys had arrived, had formed the Command Team under Colonel Hogan, things had changed. Holidays had become more a part of their lives (sometimes in unusual ways, and several times to rather unusual ends) and Halloween right along with all the rest. 

For two Halloweens past, they'd gotten a reasonable amount of amusement from scaring Klink and Schultz, and if not scaring them, then bewildering them with a bunch of made-up nonsense that the two Germans seemed to accept far too easily, enough Newkirk had to wonder what folk tales THEY were accustomed to. Stories about Rip Van Winkle and Jack O'Lantern, The Headless Horseman, Dracula (in a variety of stories), assorted werewolves, numerous ghosts, and a dozen others had come spilling forth from the shared memories of those in Barracks Two and elsewhere. 

There had been a costume party one year; well, so that really was intended to provide cover for those three airmen they were smuggling out of camp, but still, it had its moments. How Hogan had ever convinced Klink into wearing that bat costume, no one ever knew. Took poor Sergeant Schultz days to get over the sight, and they'd thought General Burkhaulter, arriving most unexpectedly, was going to have a stroke!

The next year they'd had bonfires, and everyone had gathered around listening to scary stories; that had been rather amusing. Of course, the bonfires had as their main purpose the forming of a signal to that bomber group, "look for the bonfires at approximately these coordinates, listen for the signals giving you the distance and directions; get to the target, then let loose!" Klink had been bewildered at the sight of the men clustered around the bonfires, holding long sticks in front of them; all but three of the sticks were just that, wooden sticks. The ones held by three of the Command Crew? Well, amazing what Kinch and Carter could come up with in the way of signaling devices when they put their heads together.

"What are they doing, Hogan?"

A smug grin, "toasting marshmallows, Kommandant."

"Marshmallows?"

"Yeah, you know, those fluffy white things? YOU know, 'marshmallows'!"

"Yes, I know what they are. But we have no marshmallows, Hogan. THEY have no marshmallows!"

A casual shrug, "true, the Red Cross fell through on that, but they are making believe there are marshmallows."

A quick yelp off to one side drew the confused German officer's attention, "what was that?"

Thinking fast to distract from Carter's excited first glimpse of the bombers and the confirmation from the signaling device he held in his hand, Hogan improvised,"burned his mouth on his marshmallow. That can happen if you try to eat them too quick," nodding wisely.

link's eyes were now glazing over, "Hogan, there ARE no marshmallows," came out in almost an aggrieved whine.

"Well, that's true, of course. But a psychosomatic injury can cause just as much pain as any other kind. Come on, Kommandant, show some sympathy!"

Newkirk refrained from snorting his amusement til after Klink wandered back to his quarters, the bewildered Kommandant turning to look at them one last time, shaking his head, muttering, "no wonder they are losing the war!"

Somehow, though, the thought of Halloween, it had fallen flat this year, no matter how they tried to talk it up amongst themselves. The lack of a related mission might have had something to do with it, along with the past few months they'd gone through. Well, the scariest stories just didn't have much impact compared to what they had seen and gone through recently. The worst monster lurking in the fog and mist couldn't compete with Major Hochstetter and his crew, never far away anymore, not with his obsession on proving Hogan was Papa Bear. They'd been up to 'tricks' for months now, and frankly the novelty had quite worn off. Treats, well, there weren't many of those to be had, no matter how hard Newkirk tried to scavenge whatever LeBeau set his heart on. Even the challenge of scaring the boots off Schultz and Klink had lost its allure, seeing as how that last visit from General Burkhaulter and Hochstetter had already done that quite effectively. Even Andrew, ever the enthusiast, had lost his robust enthusiasm for the holiday. Well, mostly anyway. At least, he'd tried to LOOK as if he had, once he saw how lackluster the other guys were about it.

It was Newkirk who finally put an end to the discussion. "Look, mates, let's just give it up. Aint got a mission on, lets just 'ave a quiet evening with a good book - if someone can get their 'ands on a good book that we 'aven't read twenty times over. Besides 'Mein Kampf'! Bloody 'ell, I'll even settle for a re-reading of 'Little Women'! Sides, remember last year? Morris told us that story that 'ad Andrew screaming his lungs out 'alf-way through the night; pulled the guards in 'ere and right annoyed they were, too. Got more than a few lumps we did," not specifying he'd been the one putting himself between the annoyed guards and a still half-asleep and bemused American Sergeant, getting bashed quite efficiently in the effort to be sure the still bewildered Andrew came through it relatively unscathed. "And Klink was so bloody pissed about that little prank we played, yours truly got two weeks in the cooler on bread and water. And, no, Louie, it WOULDN'T be a good time to sneak out and do that little job in town; I mean, it sounds good - mixing in with everyone else in costume, cept the Krauts don't DO 'alloween, or didn't you know? It's pretty much a Scots/English/Irish/Welsh kinda a thing, least that's what I've always 'eard. And, come to think on it, aint we got enough horrors without trying to conjure up some extras?"

And, just between him and the fence post, he didn't want to hear another rendition of "Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" that had been the centerpost for last year's story-telling; that cut far too close to home anymore. Hogan was starting to make him very nervous, very uncomfortable; no, their clever and imaginative commanding officer was starting to scare the hell out of him, and in more ways than he wanted to think about.

He got no arguments, and it was decided - they were skipping Halloween. Still, Andrew was disappointed, that was obvious and the sight of that woebegone face had its usual result on one Peter Newkirk, causing him to finally throw good sense out the window and do whatever he needed to in order to restore a semblance of a smile to the young sergeant's face. That was how he ended up lurking around the camp in a long black cape, carved wooden fangs bruising his gums, and making little hissing noises, using a highly-theatrical god-awful accent in proclaiming himself 'Dracula', and 'in search of that vile dog Van 'elsing w'at keeps trying to stake me thru the 'eart!'. He'd argued later that the accent "wouldn't 'ave been 'alf bad, if it weren't for those bloody fangs!" 

Well, he'd scared the crap out of Schultz and Klink coming around the corner, (though Langenscheidt had just laughed hysterically at THEIR earlier meeting), and annoyed the hell out of Colonel Hogan who'd been summoned from his quarters by the slightly overwrought Kommandant. Hogan had hurriedly concocted a surprisingly believable explanation of 'repressed memories of a past life that occasionally come out on October 31st', "well, everyone knows that, Kommandant. Just something about that particular time of the year, you know; affects a lot of people that way." LeBeau and Kinch had looked at Newkirk, being escorted off to the cooler still with his cape and fangs, like he was stark raving mad, which was probably understandable considering he'd been one of the ones strongly in favor of skipping Halloween entirely. He sincerely hoped no-one back home ever heard about this! Explaining the dog bite in his arse, the black eye and all the rest, well, he had another two weeks in the cooler to figure all that out, come up with a story perhaps not quite true, but not quite so embarrassing as the truth, either. 

Still, that smile on Andrew's face had made it all worth it. Blimey, no one else had that effect on him, not even Mavis. Not Marisol, not Maude. Bloody 'ell, not even Caeide! He wasn't even sure what words to use to describe it anymore - confusing? Bewildering? Bloody well stupid?? He lay there on the thin mattress on the hard bunk in Cooler Cell Number Three, puzzling it all out but getting nowhere. He gave himself a determined shake, and decided to think about lining out a new magic act he would perform to great acclaim after the war. Somehow, though, all he could see was that grin of delight on Andrew's face, and he found himself grinning into the darkness, and wasn't that bloody well annoying???!


End file.
